27083 STUDENTS
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29 STATES
12 k 1 7 CLASS OF spartan banner • summer 2017|1
THE BANNER STAFF 2016-2017
{ Editor’s Note }
EXECUTIVE TEAM
Editor-in-Chief ANNA SIPEK Editors
ANA AGAPITOVA NAMITHA ALEXANDER KATIE ANDREWS ELIZABETH GOBLIRSCH
ver the past few weeks I’ve been thinking about what exactly I want to say. Something about what you should do, or where you should be. Maybe there’s some sort of advice I can impart as my final contribution to my high school. I’ve come to the conclusion, however, that I am in no place to be giving advice. Since our freshman year, we have been making strides. Perhaps not always in the right direction, but we’ve made them. We come from a class which led nearly all of our sports teams to state. The class to get the Spartan Banner censored, who pioneered social justice both in our schools and our community. We both got the internet blocked and found a way around said blocks within about a week. We are the class who elected a school board member, protested our government, and rose up against the hypocrisy of it all. We are rebels. Artists. Engineers. Innovators. Masters of our own destiny. We don’t need any more advice (except maybe from Mr.Coffey (page 11)). We’re doing just fine on our own.
SIMRAN KHUNGER BELLA PETROPOLOUS NIKHITA SANTEBENNUR NATALIE SCHMIDT
STAFF JOURNALISTS Ava Barker Sam Barnes Deepali Bhalla Alexia Castillo Megan Daniels Bera Demirbilek Emma Gapinski Alex Garvens Emma Jester Bella Koch Maria Korkos
Aaron Liu Andy Lucas Alex Maier Erin Malloy Matthew Peterman Olivia Russo Emma Schaetz Mia Schlidt Morris Seaton Arjun Shreekumar Turner Tushaus
Adviser MRS. LINDSAY SKATRUD
MISSION STATEMENT The Spartan Banner is an open forum of student expression that aims to inform, enlighten and entertain the students of the Brookfield East community. While the student body is the primary audience, the staff recognizes the publication is read by faculty, administrators, parents and the Elmbrook community. The Spartan Banner staff reserves the right to write about interesting and relevant material at a local, regional, national and worldwide level. As decision makers for the publication, staff members strive to adhere to the qualities of professional journalism with emphasis on skills defined by the Journalism Education Association.
Anna Sipek
Editor in Chief FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA 2 | spartan banner • summer 2017
GOING PLACES
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Arjun Shreekumar Shyam Mani, after leading a very successful high school career, is on his way to study Industrial Engineering and Economics at Northwestern University. Before college, however, Mani is working at OfERR - the Organization for Eelam Refugee Rehabilitation. The nonprofit, nonpolitical group aims to give voices to Tamilian refugees and empower them to advocate for their rights. Mani will be working as a Human Rights Intern, and will mainly be interacting with Tamilians living in Chennai, India, teaching them English, completing administrative tasks and doing field work at refugee camps. Mani is of Tamilian descent himself, so he has the cultural and lingual background necessary to bridge the gap between people. Mani’s work with the Clinton campaign prior to the November election gave him experience working with volunteers and keeping up with a number of administrative responsibilities. While the internship isn’t directly in line with what Mani wants to pursue in college, it does cater to his personal interests of human rights and international relations. In the current political climate, he said, “it’s important to understand and see the plight of refugees first hand before making judgments about who they are and why they flee their countries.”
Ana Agapitova Mo Polyak got involved with comedy more professionally because she wanted to do it for a living. Her rise to fame started when her harambe parody song called “Ode to Harambe” went viral on facebook, getting over a million views. Since then, her views have remained significantly higher than before she released that song. A couple months later, she won the #gopitchyourself contest. This contest was created by a company called WhoHaha, which was founded by Elizabeth Banks. While Elizabeth was involved with Pitch Perfect 3 post-production, she wanted to get fans of the franchise involved. Mo submited 5 videos to the contest. You can find all of her videos at Mo Polyak on YouTube. Her Alternative Facts song won, landing her the chance to fly to Universal Studios in Los Angeles to film a Pitch Perfect 3 promotion video. In addition to comedy, Mo also does stand-up. She started stand-up at ComedySportz, where the last class of a program is a stand-up show. She hoped to continue to do stand up and to start getting gigs on her own. After graduating, she plans on continuing her career in comedy. Whohaha has told Mo that she can visit at any time to work on scripts and film. She also met people who can help her get stand-up gigs in LA. Next year she is going to Columbia College in Chicago and is majoring in comedy writing and performance.
Mia Schlidt Lisa Chu is set to leave on June 15 for the Lackland Air Force base in Texas to pursue a career as an Aircraft Loadmaster, whose job is to supervise the unloading and loading of cargo in the Armed Forces. While this will be Lisa’s official job after graduation, her dream is to work as a Paratrooper. Opened to women in 2015, Paratroopers, commonly known as PJs, rescue aircrews in emergency situations. Lisa Chu has always had her eye on the military. She admires the stories and the courage that they projected. On the contrary, one of her good friends from Pakistan tried to convince her not to join the United States Military because she thinks the military is corrupt and they change people for the worse. However, that didn’t change Lisa’s mind. Her goal for going into the military is to change the way people are treated so they aren’t dehumanized. Additionally, Lisa would like to thank Brookfield East High School for being part of her journey to attaining her goal. Two ways that Brookfield East assisted her is offering the opportunity to take the ASVAB (Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery), which is the millitary placement test that characterizes the position you will get with in the military, and to introducing her to the recruiters. spartan banner • summer 2017|3
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THE ONLY THING WE’RE CHASING ARE OUR GOALS GRIND NEVER STOPS WE HAVE NO TIME FOR EXCUSES WORKING 24/7 ALWAYS IMPROVING
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Max Aslin•Football•U.S. Air Force Academy Roland Conway•Soccer•Marquette University Trey Goodnetter•Soccer•UW-Milwaukee Jake Graf•Basketball•Edgewood College Saif Ibraheem•Wrestling•Concordia University Wisconsin Robert Krill•Tennis•UW-Madison Max MacGillis•Football•UW-LaCrosse Jen Wandt•Soccer•Baylor University ive
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ALABAMA University of Alabama Claire Lukas
ARIZONA Arizona State University Megan Flemming
ARKANSAS John Brown University Matthew Xiong
CALIFORNIA San Diego State University Kristin Blaedow•Christina Boyd• Riley Gillespie•Jaden Piggee
California Polytechnic Zachary Skovgaard
USC Gerald Hartman
Loyola Marymount University Kate Kanavas
COLORADO US Air Force Academy Maxim Aslin
Colorado School of Mines Paige Christie
Colorado State University Emma Corwin•Caroline Forsmo• Simone Hoff
University of Colorado Boulder Connor Krause
FLORIDA University of Central Florida Steven DeGarmo Sean Glatch
Santa Fe College Louden Pucek
Loyola University Chicago Maria Gioiosa•Annika Liu• Nicholas Spencer•Daniel Scott
Bradley University Clayton Kress
Northwestern University Shyam Mani
Columbia College Chicago Maureen Polyak Benjamin Kasun
INDIANA
KENTUCKY University of Kentucky David Bayne
University of Indiana
Cara Davidson
Jacqueline Close
LOUISIANA
GEORGIA
Grace College
Emory University
Stephanie Todd
Dominique Hill
IOWA
MASSACHUSETTS
Aditya Jhaveri
IDAHO Brigham Young University Jared Stauffer
ILLINOIS North Central College Erin Donnelly
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University of Northern Iowa
Xavier University
Tufts University
Taylor Allen
Avery Barnes
University of Iowa
Harvard University
Sophia Cafaro•Angela Funk • Stuart Gildea
University of Dubuque Nicholas Williams
Colin Gray-Hoehn
Northeastern University Elaine Klatt
MICHIGAN Michigan State University Sam McTaggart
Calvin College Mikayla Topp
Michigan Tech Tabitha Walsh
MINNESOTA University of Minnesota Caroline Chuppa•Michael Staff• Elizabeth Urbanski•Carly Wolff• Yu Yang Zhang•Elizabeth Ritchie• Julia Olenchek• Samantha White
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TENNESSEE Belmont University Jamie Keith
TEXAS University of North Texas Abbie Gerczak•Nalani Moesch
Southern Methodist University Elizabeth Sukowatey
Baylor University Jennifer Wandt
VIRGINIA Mary Washington Diana Gioia
Virginia Tech Riley Brien
WORK Destiny Hart Alek Tyler Michael Marenda Connor Kettleson Vincent Wenger Isaiah Windom
MILITARY
Alexander Ohde Carlos Lopez Adam Schlegel Eric Schuh Lisa Chu
Winona State University
NEBRASKA
Luke Kerstetter
University of Nebraska-Lin-
MISSOURI Kansas City Art Institute Mary Drabiszczak
Washington University in St.Louis Elizabeth Goblirsch
MONTANA Montana State University Shea Dugall•Gretchen Gutenberger•Evan Halada
coln Ethan Butt•Connor Chuppa• Maximilian Ketter•Ryan Wolff
NORTH CAROLINA Duke University Suchir Bhatt
North Carolina State Bella Hyndiuk
UNC- Chapel Hill Aaron Keech
James Fisher
NORTH DAKOTA NDSU
UNDECIDED
Jacob Hafner
Lauren Duesing Jacob Sudar
OHIO
Sam Santiago-Lloyd Justin Forbes
Cedarville University Shawn Ross •Bryce Wilkerson
Ohio State University
Alexis Uhan Giovanna Rezende
Madison Sirny
SOUTH CAROLINA Coastal Carolina University Alexis Ormsby
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UW-Madison
Zoha Aman•James Arndt• Benjamin Attenberger•Sarah Bachmann•Benjamin Baker• Alexandra Becker•Deepali Bhalla•Lucas Bloss •Victoria Chen •Kiera Clearly • Benjamin Davidson• Gianna DeCicco • Eleana Felker • Michael Foster•Samuel Gauger • Graden Gibson•Brandon Hillary• Riley Hughes•Eva Hyndiuk • Katherine Klimpel •Robert Krill• Michelle Lazar•Tin Le •Darby McManus•Alyssa Meurer•Lizabeth Neary •Natalie Pahapill •Kiran Prasad •Skylar Rashid•Cole Sabinash•Maria Seubert •Jude Shafer• Anna Sipek•Theodore Stavropoulos •Adam Storch •Grace Sutton• Conrad Telega •Nicholas Tennessen •Christian Thorpe•Joseph Timm• Eleni Tongas •Melissa Torbey •Elizabeth Tripi•Jay Van Ert•Nick Watry •Carissa Woolman
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UW-Milwaukee
Jack Adams •Justin Bianco •Allison Cayo•Cameron Cera•Gabriella Gonzales•Trey Goodnetter•Matthew Griffey•Abigail Haynes•Elliot Holmes •Logan Huck•Holly Kehlnhofer•Parmjit Khera•Shawn McClain •Samuel Meysembourg•Valerie Miller•Isabell Nieves•Jimmy Onela •Bhargov Puttaparti•Christopher Reed•Selena Rivas•Nathan Sayavongsa•Marie Schimborski• Anne Steigerwald •Margaret Swietlik •Abigail VanLare•Levi Weatherall Jr.
UW-Whitewater
Seth Bemis•Trevor Byrum•Zachary Byrum•Nathan Gitzlaff•Amanda Harder•Sean Keipper•Nicholas Kreul•Brandon Kugler•Gabriel Lehnerer •Kacey Leipolt•Andrew Lucas•Laura Morris•Zachary Nadon• Gaige Obst•Raejion Rembert• Ronald Stremlau•Sarah Wessel
UW-LaCrosse
Holly Behling•Derek Burgoyne• Julia Frasch•Tesora Harold• Margaret Klundt•Maxwell MacGillis Madeline Malloy •David Precour• Hannah Purvis•Greg Schuh•Lilly Strege •Cynthia Vang
UW-Oshkosh
Emma Benedict•Kara Dellemann• Sarah Her•Sarah Michaels•Heather Savignac
UW-Stout
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Carroll University
MATC
Mackenzie Griffin•Megan Hitzemann•Aubrey Prey
Nancy Chang•Helena Gantner•Emily Maloney•Michael Milet
UW-Waukesha
Edgewood College
Carly Foxgrover-Foley•Courtney Holt•Kevin Jeatran•Gina Koceja• Jake Mierow•Martinee Shelby• Avtar Singh•Elizabeth Spenner Valli Stewart-Funk•Tyler Vincent
MSOE
Jake Graf
Concordia University Saif Ibraheem•Melanie Multhauf
Mount Mary University
Jonathan Cobb•Lucas D’Amato • William Dennis•Joshua Kobza•
Chloe Clark•Cheri Khimani• Jade Langkau•Abigail Ruttman
Donovan Miller•Jack Turicek
Marion University
UW-Eau Claire
Zacchaeus King
Anne Hartay•Madison Lecher• Nora Zimdars•Marquette University Tatiana Babikova•Roland Conway Jack Eddinger•Alyna Manjee• Grace Pitzen•Adam Telega
WCTC
Sierra Campbell•Andrew Daniels• Matthew MacCudden•Nicholas Martin•Jacob Mertz•Sarah Metz• Amanda Piek•Aleah Polnitz•Maddie Sabinash•Wenmei Wahlan• Julia Wenger-Jacobs
St. Norbert College Clavon Byrd
UW-Stevens Point Kira Klinkhardt
MIAD Alyssa Krieg
Wisconsin Lutheran College Joseph Serbiak Olivia Jenkins
UW-Parkside Gabby Maggit•Cole Vento
UW-Green Bay Aaron Weiskopf
DEAR CLASS OF 2017, I am honored to have been chosen to write this letter. I do not have many words of wisdom and will not be “preachy,” but I will share some lessons I have learned from my experiences and you are welcome to take what you like. Soon you will leave this fine institution and embark on a new journey be it work, university, military, or something else. It will be strange not having bells ringing every 90 minutes, pizza-dippers for lunch, or teachers reminding you to “buckle down”. In many cases you might be “on your own” for the first time. This is a great gift and with it comes great responsibility. First, remember the quote attributed to 19th century intellectual Herbert Spencer. “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” These are wise words. We are never so ignorant as when we make an assumption/judgment based on little or skewed evidence. Be sure to investigate before you draw a conclusion on people, places, or ideologies. There are many “experts” out there in this sound-bite world. Be your own expert, talk to people you don’t know, conduct your own investigations, engage in thoughtful dialogues with people who think differently from you (not the shouting matches you see on TV), make your own educated conclusions, and be open-minded enough to change your mind if the evidence shows you something different. Be a scholar, not a scrub. You are going to screw up. A lot. Be gentle on yourself, and allow yourself to learn from it. If your mistake has hurt someone else make amends, apologize, and work to never commit that act again. In the same vein, be willing to forgive others. This doesn’t mean be a doormat; it means acknowledging someone else’s sincere apology. Avoid grudges and resentments. No good comes from harboring hate towards others. It is like slowly drinking poison in order to kill someone who has wronged you.
Be sure to travel. Whether you go to South America or South Milwaukee, make sure to immerse yourself into another area that you are not familiar with. Avoid “chain restaurants” and resorts and get to know the people of the region. You are young so you can travel for cheap, and the lousy places you will stay will allow you to learn more about yourself and the world than you could possibly imagine. Don’t overlook possibilities. Those of you who have had me know that I keep a poster of Pearl Jam on my wall to remind me of the time when I skipped Pearl Jam’s opening act (right before they became famous) in order to get a McDonald’s Quarter-pounder with cheese. Don’t hedge your bets on what could be possible, and don’t eat McDonalds. Ask for help when you need it. Whether it is a professor in school or someone at work or a close friend, most people will be happy to help you out. In return, be of service to others. It is incredibly gratifying to help someone else without any expectation of reward. Consider the advice of my old parish priest, “Do something, for someone, for nothing, everyday”. Pursue a career that you will enjoy. I have been teaching for 22 years. I’ll never buy a yacht, but I look forward to coming to school every day. Find that career path for yourself and be willing to change your mind if your original plan doesn’t work out. Finally, be present in the moment. Live where your feet are at. John Lennon said it best when he wrote, “Life is what happens when you are busy making plans.” The musician Warren Zevon said it even better, “Enjoy every sandwich”. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to have been able to work with you. I wish you all the greatest success, health, and happiness in whatever you do. Take care, Mr. Coffey
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